Yes, but there is a system and there has always been a system in place to keep unwanted materials out of children’s hands and control the amount unwanted material a child is exposed to. It is called parenting and has nothing to do with the government control.

It is just easier for the parents to use these mediums as a means of surrogate babysitter. This is just hideous to comprehend. Parents need to be the one’s that monitor what their child is involved in. They need to understand their child’s like and dislikes, they need to understand his/her fears and dreams. Parents just need to play the larger role in their own child’s development and not depend on media outlets including game developers to protect their child. After all, since we are all different, we should not depend on a stranger to know if something is appropriate for little Johnny, his parents should know him well enough to make that decision.

Don't get me wrong, you are absolutely correct about parents and their responsibilities. That said, I honestly would prefer if there was some kind of parents licence in some cases, actually.

But parents cannot teach 'society' to their kids. They can teach moral values, social behaviour, language, any kind of skill, all that jazz, yes. Parents can prepare their kids for many, many things. But the fun thing about offspring is, there's a certain dynamic you cannot control. Like you can say a thousand times don't touch this it is hot, and you can take care like hell, one out of those fifty little creatures will touch it. There are influences you cannot control. On the playground, in the kindergarten, at school. My kids are at the kindergarten 5 days a week for about 6 hours each day. I have no absolute control about what they eat and when, if they take a nap after lunch or what words they hear or say. This is where influence by anyone but the parent side begins.

I don't blame or bitch, I just say that there's a long list of things which form a human character, and movies and games, media (containing whatever material) in general are part of it, and to me it sounds not to far fetched when I say violence (and anything else for that matter) in the media gives ideals and ideas to the young people, which might not always be 'caught' ideally by the parents.

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Originally Posted by GTA:SWcity

Having said that, even as much a part of society and as influential as they are, their effects can be effectively supervised and negated regarding child development.

Yeah, you and me, we both would like this to be the truth.

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So while it is everywhere in our society, there is a choice to turn away.

Turning away is a *bad* idea, really. Eventually you'll have to cope with everything that does not fit into your parental plan. Otherwise you will have problems.

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It is but the environment have varying degrees relative to source of influence. People eventually realize "hey, these games might be fun but I'm not really going anywhere in my life" and decide to get up and get out.

Odd, that's exactly what some school shooter's thoughts might have been...

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Originally Posted by Achilles

This is an attempt to shift the burden of proof. If someone wants to argue that violent games do have an effect, I'm perfectly willing to listen to whatever they have to say (in fact, I'm quite interested in what a legitimate study would show). However it is on the parties making the claim that there is an effect to show what that effect is. Otherwise, we're just guessing.

So, you'd argue that when you do things over and over again, that does not has any effect at all? That'd make me wonder what any kind of training is for, then. Wait, you mean it only works for non-violent stuff? Ah,.. then it makes sense.

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Which would seem to posit that there is some benefit to these devices (???). Do you have a source for this?

Oh, I said benefit? Oop.

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If I play games and my friends play games, that makes us "gamers", not "mass murders".

You seem not to fit into the scheme of "our youth", actually.

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Even if we pile on violence in TV, movies, music, etc, I think we have to admit that a lot of this violence is situational.

And, that makes a difference exactly how?

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I think seeing your dad beat your mom IRL one time is going to be a lot more damaging than a million hours of "shooting" pixels shaped like zombies.

And luckily enough, there's nothing but zombie and alien shooters available on the market, too!!

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One of these situations is modeling behavior while the other is clearly fantasy.

And luckily enough, never do especially young people never mix up reality and fantasy ever as well!!